Gods Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
by ingrid-matthews
Summary: A BSG NotChristmas Tale.


Raiting/Genre: PG-13, Gaeta and Dee friendship, gen

Spoilers: Minor for all of S3

Summary: A BSG Not-Christmas tale.

o0o0o

One of the stranger things Gaeta does when he isn't repairing the _Galactica's_ shattered innards or crawling away from humans intent on killing him for imagined crimes against them, is keep up-to-date calendars for all the twelve lost colonies, including Virgon's eccentric orbit (it loses a few days every hundred years or so) and Picon's speedy passing, enjoying two or three years extra for every one of the others.

He keeps them obsessively, tweaking the homemade program he'd written out of boredom some years before, until he thinks he might have the days right, almost to a quarter of an hour.

After that, it's just a matter of letting them run and watch the days slip by while imagining spring on Tauron. _The taglia will be blooming this year_, he thinks, choosing not to remember that a mere touch of the flower would send him wheezing to a medic center, a victim of allergies.

Sometimes a Colonies-wide holiday will pop up, like Brumalia and the first time he saw it flash on his screen, there was a Cylon attack a few seconds later, a trial of blood and fire that lasted into the night, with multiple jumps, so he forgot about it quickly enough.

The second post-apocalypse Brumalia he lived through was on New Caprica. He had noticed the date a few minutes before the pale, sad wives of detainees converged peacefully on Colonial One, singing songs and carrying candles, only to be shot down by Centurions when one of the Cavils complained of them giving him a headache.

His little program beeped just at the moment of the slaughter and he almost erased it then and there, but ...

It's Brumalia again and when the hour hits, Gaeta braces himself for the next disaster, but the lab remains quiet. Peaceful almost and he leans back in his chair, staring at the computer's clock wind down in Colonial time, seconds of non-celebration passing by.

What did one do on Brumalia again, he wonders. Drinking, there was a lot of that, consumption of hot boozy things, the spicy scent of herb wine was everywhere, inescapable. There were some religious ceremonies attached, but not too many, nothing mandatory, not that Gaeta ever attended religious ceremonies of any sort.

His tags even proclaim him as a "Stoic", but that's only because he'd heard somewhere that "Atheist" would be bad for his career, so he changed it to something less charged. Back then, he took his Brumalia drinks with as much fake cheer as anyone else, not really paying much attention to the meaning behind the ceremony.

There were other things people did on that day, he thinks now ... lights, maybe? Glittery things, tossed into trees, propped up in the snow ...

Brumalia was a winter holiday, even in places where it fell during the middle of summer. It's cold enough in space, a perpetual winter, Gaeta thinks vaguely, suddenly remembering his lone hidden bottle of wine. It's one of those little industrial pints, the kind they hand out on transport trips and he'd gotten his when he'd left Picon for Caprica, to report for duty for the very first time. He'd saved it out of some sentimental impulse and through a strange miracle it had survived, along with a bag of cocktail peanuts, so old now as to be fossilized.

Eating those would be out of the question, so he can put his nostalgia there and drink the wine. He rummages through his belongings which he keeps in the lab against theft, as robbing his locker has become a hobby of certain factions in the changing rooms. He has little enough to steal, but he thinks its more a method of humiliation than it is for any petty material gain.

All the more reason to drink during this 'holiday' season.

Ah, there it is. He pulls the bottle out from its hiding place in an old, unwearable sock and places it on the lab desk with a short burst of aplomb. He rummages around for a glass, easily finds a bunch of them in the bottom drawer -- (of course, Baltar would have a drawer full of drinking glasses) -- and he pulls out a clean one, placing it carefully in front of him.

He glances at the program. It would be breakfast time on Virgon now. Nice things to eat, he's sure, his stomach growling at the thought of bacon and eggs and fluffy rolls, with real butter. Coffee too, freshly ground, filling the air with a wonderful smell. The kids bouncing in their chairs, waiting for the moment they can run outside in the snow to play with their friends, wearing their brand new coats and boots, a traditional Brumalia gift.

Parents would sip slowly at their coffee, just to tease, until their indulgent smiles said it was all right to go. There would be squealing and struggling to get into boots and once outside the air would be as crisp and cold and sweet as ice cream. The world would be white and the snow wouldn't run out, no matter how many forts and snowballs and snow sculptures you made ...

Gaeta's mouth tightens. He takes the bottle and twists the top off, the slightly sour smell of cheap wine filling his nostrils. There's a knock at the door and he calls out absently ... "Come in."

It's Dee and she looks harried, carrying her ever-present pile of folders and papers. "Sorry to bother you, but ..."

She's exhausted, he can tell, her normally bright eyes dull and bruised-looking. Her mouth is turned down at the corners and Gaeta has to think about the last time he's seen her smile -- it seems like a long time ago. "You never bother me," he says cheerfully. He motions to the chair. "Take a load off for a couple of minutes." He dangles the bottle as temptation. "I've got some fine wine."

She winces and there's almost a grin. He knows she's been unhappy lately. Gaeta's heard the rumors, about Lee and Starbuck and his opinion is of the kind he'd never say aloud, except it runs along the lines of those two frakheads deserving each other and Dee deserving so much better.

He wishes he could give it to her, whatever 'better' is, but these days, he can't even help himself, so it's smarter not to try.

"Dare I even ask where you got that?" she asks, squinting and examining the bottle's label.

"Graduation present from Picon Transports. I think it's aged quite well by now."

She makes a horrible face, but her eyes lighten a little and she actually sits down. She's still hugging the files and Gaeta has to tug them free and put them aside, just to remind her to relax.

"I don't think aged means 'an old, dusty screwcap bottle from prehistory'," she says, but she takes an offered glass anyway.

He pours it out and there's just enough for two half-glasses. "What doesn't kill us, makes us stronger." Her mouth falls again and Gaeta wants to kick himself. "I'm talking about the wine," he reminds her mildly. He decides to change the subject. "It's Brumalia, you know. At least on the calander."

"Is it?" she asks, taking a tentative sip at the wine, her lips curling at the taste. "Did you celebrate?"

"Not really. I used to play with kids who did. It was ..." He pauses, searching for the right word.

"Garish? Annoying? Stupid?" Dee smiles thinly. "My family was big into it. It was ridiculous. Our house turned into this cheap looking circus every year, all foil and lights and snowflakes in a can and gods, I hated it. My father was pissed off at everything for the entire month and my mother just kept baking cookies and running around and pretending that it was just the greatest thing ever." A large gulp of wine disappears. "It sucked."

"And yet, from the outside, it looked ... romantic," Gaeta says, taking his own sip and immediately regretting it. _Gah, that's awful stuff_. "I never thought about the stress it must have entailed to make everything seem so nice."

"A lot of things look perfect from the outside. But underneath there are things no one knows about. Ugly, broken things and the more pretty-looking things we plaster on top of it, the worse it rots from the inside." Dee's voice trails away and Gaeta knows she's no longer talking about Brumalia. "It's all fake ... a show. A farce."

"I'm sorry," he says softly, pushing his glass away, his stomach already roiling at the tiny taste he took.

To his surprise she takes it and polishes it off. "Don't be. I'm almost feeling good about it now," she laughs, her eyes brightening, just a little. "Got any more?"

"I'm pretty sure I don't, but if I find any, it's yours," he says. On an impulse, he reaches out and squeezes her fingers. They're cold and her normally well-groomed nails are bitten down, nearly to the quick. It hurts him to see her like this, but instead of saying so, he tries to smile. It's not all that easy. "Happy Brumalia anyway, Dee."

"Thank you. Happy Brumalia to you, Felix," she replies, returning the squeeze.

There are one or two gray hairs gracing her head now, snowy against the black and gods, she's in her early twenties, but then again so is he and he's got more of those than he can care to count, frosting his sideburns and temples.

They are going to die, old and broken before their time and Felix can't help but feel jealous of the dead in a twisted way, of their memories departing them unsullied by the horror of war and flight. Of having known all their Brumalias as they were supposed to be and not having to suffer through these silent days and nights, all of them alike in their bleakness.

They sit like that a long time, holding hands and not saying a word, but knowing they are each thinking the same thing.

It's too bad the worlds are gone, even if underneath, things weren't always that wonderful.

o0o0o

Later in Dee's shift, she pulls out a small string of red beads she'd saved from a broken necklace and a foil wrapper she'd found balled up in her locker, straightened and folded into a star and arranges them on her station in an approximation of a festive look.

The sad little display gets its share of curious stares, until Kelly finally asks. "What's that?"

"Brumalia decorations. It's today you know," she says. "Felix told me."

Kelly looks surprised. "Today? Huh. I haven't thought about Brumalia in ..."

"Years?" she finishes, handing him a report. "Me either. But that's what it is."

"Huh," Kelly mutters, walking away. He turns to another CIC worker. "It's Brumalia today. Did you know that?"

The worker shakes his head. "I forgot about it."

Later on, he turns to another worker and soon the CIC is buzzing with memories and thoughts and old recipes and even Tigh mentions something about a fruit dish his grandmother used to make, and there's talk about warming the Chief's fake ambrosia and when Felix walks in, he's bombarded with questions about where in the Colonies it was Brumalia now and how long was it going to last, if they had time for at least one good night of celebrating.

In the midst of all this hubbub, he glances at Dee, who smiles back, a real smile, broad and happy.

Her eyes twinkle a little, like the star on her desk and he remembers the smell of snow, a taste memory against his tongue, which, for just a moment, chases all the bitterness away.

o0o0o

end

All reviews are welcome.


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